Page 96 of Storm and Tempest

“You aren’t taking Maizie.” Jax folded his arms across his chest.

His father said, “That’s right. We safeguard the people under our protection. We don’t send them into the lion’s den.”

“She’s an adult. At least she was the last time I checked.” Amara wasn’t backing down. “She’s also the innocent who can get us in if we pretend like we’re handing her over.”

Jax looked at Bruce. “Care to talk some sense into her?”

Bruce shook his head.

Zeyla and Amara looked at him with identical expressions. Amara said, “Because he’s the voice of reason and I’m an irrational woman, is that it?”

Jax sighed. “Maizie stays where she’s protected. No exceptions.”

“Maybe you should ask her whyDominatusdoesn’t seem the least bit interested in her.” Amara lifted her chin. “Ask her why she’s untouchable.”

“This is ridiculous.” Jax shook his head. “Whatever game you’re playing, Amara, I’m not interested. Maizie isn’t going into one of their facilities, no matter how you goad us into agreeing with you.”

He knew she’d been tested years ago, as a child. The man who’d held her had taken her to a house in England where she’d been assessed. Whatever their criteria, she hadn’t met it. That was the simple reason whyDominatusdidn’t want her as one of their captives, the ones kept to give birth to a child they augmented in a lab.

“You don’t know anything about her,” he added.

Zeyla turned to her mother. “You can’t take Maizie in there just to get intel.”

Amara backed off and sat down. Still, her words echoed in his head. She’d successfully planted a seed of doubt, and he wasn’t sure how to uproot it. There was a chance Kenna was out there on an island in Alaska. That was all he knew.

And he was finally going to find her.

Chapter Twenty-Six

“Gear up and get going?” Ramon’s jaw flexed.

“We need a boat or a small plane.”

Hollace went to the door ahead of them. “We have a helicopter that can get you to the airport. Pretty sure you already know that since we picked you up in Mexico.”

“Right.” Jax stepped into the hall, where he could hear raised voices. A man and a teenage young woman.

“Is that Maizie?” Ramon asked, walking faster.

Jax headed for the source, down the hall where a set of double doors opened into an expansive room. Computer screens covered the walls. In the center were long metal tables and white-coated technicians performing forensic testing. “You guys have your own lab?”

Hollace looked around. “Fully state-of-the-art. The largest private lab on the West Coast, actually. Preston and Mr. Jonas didn’t mess around. We’re funded for whatever we need, and we’ve been taking cold cases, along with privately contracted investigations. A lot of it was inspired by Kenna. She’s done an amazing job closing cases over the years, bringing down dangerous criminals and saving victims who fell through the cracks.”

Across the far end of the room, Maizie yelled, “Don’t touch that!”

Jax strode down the aisle and saw an MSI guy facing off with her. She held her tablet to her chest.

The guy said, “You’ll get faster results if you connect to our system.”

“Give her some space, yeah?” Jax ushered the guy back, noting the tension in Maizie. Not so different than how she’d been for weeks, but the addition of what Amara had insinuated was making his head spin with implications. “Maizie?”

“I don’t have to connect to their system if I don’t want to.”

“Why would you not?” the guy said.

Hollace spoke from behind Jax, “Richards, why don’t you give us a second?”

The guy wandered off. “Whatever.”